


behind all love is

by Cerian



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Domestic Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:46:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerian/pseuds/Cerian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur used to get angry so easily when he was younger, Eames thinks and roams a hand across his own ribs, pretending the years  have blurred the lines between a caress and something more, something harsher in its touch, the bruise under his fingertips fresh and sore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	behind all love is

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a response on my own prompt at the kinkmeme.

**i.**  
  
Eames meets Arthur for the first time when he’s lonely and young and not so fresh –faced to the world of organized crime.

 

 

  
Their job last for three months. He sees Arthur every day in those three months. It’s a lot of time. So, as most things go, they get to know each other and Eames… Eames _likes_ Arthur, he’s smart and brilliant and detailed, sometimes a prick when someone messes up, his anger quick and fierce, but most of the time he’s genuinely nice and sweet and charming. And he takes the loneliness away, the one that’s been lingering for a long, long time in Eames chest. He can’t help that he falls a little bit in love. 

Anyone would.  
  
  
  
  
  
Afterwards, when the job’s done, they fuck. They fuck with trembling fingers and clumsy kisses, both a little in awe of each other’s bodies, and with a rhythm that borderlines desperate and _it feels so good._

 

 

 

The sheets are twisted around Eames waist, morning light of the city of spires illuminates the hotel room. He lights a cigarette, inhales, exhales, smoke curling in the air.

Arthur steps out the bathroom, joins him in the bed and says ‘’do you want me to leave?’’  
  
Eames  flickers his gaze towards him then and murmurs _no, not really._ Arthur smiles and Eames can’t help smile back at him.  
  
  
  


 

They spend two weeks in Prague. Mostly they spend their fucking, and in between pauses they order room service and eat, or sleep with each other’s bodies fitted together like stacked spoons. Sometimes, though, they walk around and see the sights, Arthur’s hand warm in his own and they’re just talking, about everything and nothing, chaste kisses spread in between the conversations. They are young and they are in love. It’s allowed.  
  
  
  


 

As it is with everything in this world, those two weeks end. They have reputations to build, secrets to steal, half-remembered dreams to leave behind. So they leave each other at the airport with a final kiss and many promises of keeping in touch and seeing each other again. Eames can feel the loneliness settle deep in him again, but he doesn’t stay long enough to the see the retreating backside of Arthur’s slender form, walking to his own gate.

  
  
  
  


It works. Miraculously enough it works. They manage to e-mail each other. Text each other. Call each other, and Eames feels like a fool each time he grins so hard his cheeks hurt when he hears Arthur’s voice, but he’ll be damned if it isn’t the best feeling in the world.  
  
  
  


 

They meet again, the Spanish heat barely tolerable. ‘’I’ve missed you.’’ Arthur says, fingers gently tracing Eames lips and Eames smiles into his touch, says ‘’I’ve missed you too.’’

 

 

**ii.**  
  
  
After a year has gone by, it’s Arthur that says it, his hands warm on Eames’s shoulder, mouth so soft and delicious – ‘’You should move in with me.’’ Eames kisses him again then, a clash of teeth rather than lips, because he can’t stop smiling.

 

They stay happy, for a while.

 

 

**iii.  
**  
The first time anything happens, Arthur punches the wall right behind Eames head, his other hand strong on Eames heaving chest.

  
They’ve just argued.  
  
Slowly, Arthur’s loosens his grip on Eames chest, lips drawn in a tight line. He pulls his fist out of the wall, having hit it straight through, dust and speck crumbling on his knuckles. When Eames locks himself in the bathroom, he doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes and slides down on the floor, his back against the bathroom door.  
  
Maybe it’s been only been a few minutes, or hours, he can’t tell but Eames hasn’t said any words. There’s barely been any noise from the bathroom and Arthur brings his hand closer to his face, inspects the dried blood on four knuckles.  
  
‘’My Dad used to beat my Mom all the time when I was a kid,’’ he says out loud, startled by his own voice.  
  
There’s a clicking noise and then Eames arms are entwined around his chest, jaw on his shoulders.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The second time anything happens, leaves Eames mouth full of blood and Arthur wishing it was his own and not knowing how it happened.  
  
  
  
  
  
The third time -- the third time marks Eames shoulders with bruises in yellow’s and blue’s from the way Arthur slammed him on the living room floor and his sides still echoing of Arthur’s fingerprints -- the third time he stops counting.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It’s dead in the night and his wrist is throbbing in a brutal way, laying at rest on Arthur’s side, both facing each other, the moonlight illuminating Arthur’s pale face.  
  
 _I’m sorry,_ he keeps murmuring, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – I don’t know how else to control it, you know, it’s how I learned to handle it, by punching it out and unfortunately you’re the first thing in sight, I’m sorry. Hit me back. Just hit me back, you’re allowed,_ his eyes intent on Eames face.  
  
 _I don’t want to make this more fucked up than it is,_ Eames keeps thinking, and besides, it’s only been a couple of times, they don’t fight every day, Arthur doesn’t get outrageously mad every day. His temper burns quick in little too forceful touches to Eames wrist, or something similar -- the actual fury, the one that causes Eames to bleed, it comes rarely and he can handle himself, he can take it, he won’t break from it.  
  
 _I love you,_ Eames murmurs.  
 _  
I’m sorry,_ Arthur says and kisses his closed eyes.  
  
  
  
  
  
They’re still in love. They stay happy, most of the time.  
  
  


**iv.  
**  
  
It does not happen every day. It does maybe, happen every month or so. But Arthur loves him, he knows that. He’s just awful at handling his temper sometimes, but that’s okay because Eames can handle it. _He can._  
  
  
  
  
  
Arthur meets Dom Cobb on a clean job he wasn’t even going to take, but did any way without remembering why. He meets Mal too. She’s charming and devious and sometimes too quiet in a way that reminds of Eames and not of Eames at all.  
  
  
  
  
  
They click instantly, the four of them. ‘’The fantastic four, no?’’ Mal winks, leaning into Dom’s side and Eames flicks a paper ball at her and misses, and Arthur laughs.  
  
  
  
  
  
When James turns three it all goes to hell.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
‘’Wake me up! Wake me up! Come on, just wake me up Eames.’’ Mal says fiercely, fingers clammy and cold against the skin of his wrist.  
  
It pounds in his head and his throat is dry, and he tries again, ‘’Mal, you’re not dreaming, listen to me.’’  
  
‘’I’m just asking of you to forge, Eames, not to give me your kidney!’’  
  
‘’This is real, I can’t forge!’’  
  
‘’Stop lying!’’ Mal screams, and lets go of his hand, gets of the couch and paces around the living room.  
  
‘’I’m not, Mal, please, this is reality.’’  
  
Mal stops her pacing, skirt fluttering around her knees when she turns to him, ‘’You’re just like Dom, so insistent. Can’t you see that I’m right?’’  
  
Eames feels his hands shake, fear creeping under his skin, _God please,_ he thinks. ‘’Prove it to me,’’ He says instead.  
  
It changes something in her, that statement, her eyes turns soft and the tense lines of her shoulders disappears. Mal kneels down in front of him, takes both of his hands into her own. They’re looking into each other’s eyes, a familiar collision of green against grey, and Mal almost smiles, a sad curve to the corner of her mouth.  
  
‘’Arthur would never laid his hands on you in reality.’’  
  
  
  
 **v.  
**  
  
 _Love is not supposed to hurt,_ Mal tells him.  
  
 _How else are you supposed to feel it then,_ Eames asks.  
  
 _Darling,_ Mal says, _darling, just leave him, you can’t fix someone that’s broken._  
  
 _No,_ Eames answers stubbornly.  
  
It goes quiet between them, only their breathing left to inform each other that the line is not broken.  
  
 _The things we do for love_ , Mal says after a beat too long, and hangs up.

 

 

  
  
  
It’s only when the police questions him that Eames figures it out. He was her last call.

 

  
  
  
The night of her funeral, neither can sleep.  
  
‘’Don’t’’ Eames says, pushes Arthur’s hands away from himself.  
  
‘’Eames, please, I need this’’ Arthur says, breath hot on Eames mouth, smell of grief and lilies on his black suit.

  
‘’No, Arthur, please, just stop’’ Eames says, weary and tired and heart aching in unknown places, his mind keeps drifting back to Phillipa’s face.  
  
‘’For fuck’s sake –‘’ Arthur shouts, slamming him agianst the wall, and Eames is left gasping for air, fingers clutched at Arthur's suit in silent prayer.  
  
  
  
  
  
I love you so much that I hate you, Eames whispers to Arthur’s sleeping form. After that he packs his bag and leaves for the airport, not looking back once.  
  
  
  
  
 **vi.**  
  
  
In Tokyo, the mass of people makes him feel so utterly alone that he flees once again.  
  
  
  
  
In Kathmandu, he gets high of something he can’t even name and starts taking things day by day. It’s all he can manage.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In Dubai, the sun reminds him of too much of LA summers and Arthur’s smile and all he can think is _I wish I knew how to quit you, I really do.  
_  
  
  
  
  
In Tripoli, he starts taking as many jobs as possible.  
  
  
  
  
In Tangier, there’s a dark haired beauty with red lips and a generous curve to her hips that he turns down, and all he does is stay in his hotel room and chain smoke.  
  
  
  
  
In Nairobi, he can’t help but check up on the rumors. _Come visit me,_ is all Yusuf says.  
  
  
  
  
  
In Mombasa, Yusuf lingers some of the pain. His face serene and wise and understanding, and it’s so long since Eames had a friend.  
  
  
  
  
One morning he wakes up to Yusuf’s cat purring into his ear and he doesn’t think about Arthur at all.  
  
  
  
  
From this point on, Eames survives.  
  
  
  
  
Then comes Cobb and calls a favor in Mal’s name and Eames can feel temptation prickling under his skin. He brings Yusuf and only hopes for the best.  
  
  
  
  
  
 **vii.**  
  
  
When they meet again for inception the weight of too many things lies between them.  
  
 _Eames, I’m impressed,_ Arthur says warmly.  
  
It jars him, just a little, how easy it is to pretend.  
  
  
  
  
 _I don’t ever want to lose you again_ , Arthur says, voice on the verge of breaking -- afterwards when they’ve pulled of the impossible -- and Eames knows what he means so well.  
  
  
  
  
 **viii.  
**  
  
 _Arthur used to get angry so easily when he was younger,_ Eames thinks and roams a hand across his own ribs, pretending the years have blurred the lines between a caress and something more, something harsher in its touch, the bruise under his fingertips fresh and sore, these days he's like a volcano, erupts once in a while.  
  
When he hears Arthur’s footsteps, he closes his eyes and can feel Arthur shift around the room, before settling on the bed. He reaches out a hand and gently traces Eames face, the lovely shape of his mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’’ he says, voice rough and hoarse.  
  
Eames flutters his eyes open then, takes Arthur’s hand and entwines it with his own, tangled in each other as they always have.


End file.
